"Nothing is original, says Kirby Ferguson, creator of Everything is a Remix. From Bob Dylan to Steve Jobs, he says our most celebrated creators borrow, steal and transform. Kirby Ferguson explores creativity in a world where 'everything is a remix'." In 9 minutes and 42 seconds, Ferguson explains in plain English why patent and copyright law is fundamentally broken.

I've often mentioned that granting legal ownership of ideas in the software field is akin to granting ownership of ideas in arts & humanities. Most people can agree that patenting literary works is bad because they can understand what it is authors do. They'd want to be able to write about whatever they please regardless of who's done it before. As long as the author does his own work and doesn't copy anything outright, all ideas are fair game. The public cannot generally relate to software developers, be we really do feel the same way about our profession - I feel entitled to work on whatever I please regardless of who's been there before me.

It's a great observation that the people at TED do a good job of echoing ideas that have been put forward by others in their fields. Arguably you are right, they "stole" the ideas, and arguably the "owner" might be entitled to legal compensation for it. It's pathetic, and though some extreme IP advocates (aka patent laywers) might love the concept of patenting presentations, I doubt it could actually happen because for most people this would hit too close to home. At the extreme - every school child could be liable for infringement when they copied the ideas of others in their reports, etc. We should instead recognise that copying is natural (*). It's not copying for the sake of copying, but rather copying and then adding our own personal touches. Anyone who believes they have a truly original idea is probably living in a very small world.